Salesforce-Backed Anaplan Sees Shares Soar After IPO

Anaplan’s stock rose on Friday in the cloud software vendor’s first day of trading as it raised the millions it will need to challenge enterprise technology heavyweights in a business planning market increasingly reliant on advanced analytic solutions.

The company, founded in the U.K. and headquartered in San Francisco, offers what it terms "connected planning" software used by large enterprises to make informed business decisions.

Anaplan sold 15.5 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange at $17 per share, then saw its stock open trading more than 40 percent higher on a day that saw major recoveries from a market slide. The stock hovered about 32 percent above IPO price at the time of this publication.

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Anaplan's Software-as-a-Service solution delivers an analytics-heavy platform with predictive technology to inform business decision makers at various levels across an organization. Solutions are tailored for verticals: finance, sales, supply chain, workforce, marketing and IT.

The company partners with some of the world's largest systems integrators and many regional consultancies focused on business processes to bring its cloud-based software to market.

The firm reported $168.3 million in revenue and a net loss of $47.6 million in fiscal 2018.

Before its public debut, Anaplan raised a total of $240 million in funding, with its last $90 million round at the start of 2016 putting it in unicorn territory. The IPO raised another $263.5 million.

Anaplan has almost 1,000 customers, with many major enterprise clients in the tech sector, including VMware, HP, DocuSign and McAfee.

Competition in the business planning market comes from name-brand giants like Oracle, SAP and IBM.

Anaplan's CEO, Frank Calderoni, had been CFO at Cisco and Red Hat before joining the company last year. Last month, Anaplan also hired Dave Morton, who famously left Tesla after a short stint with the electric car manufacturer, as its CFO.

Salesforce is one of the company's investors, as well as a technology partner.

Salesforce Sales Cloud feeds into Anaplan models and plans, and Salesforce Analytics Cloud is part of Anaplan’s business planning and execution applications lineup.

Other investors include Premji Invest, Brookside Capital, Coatue Management, Sands Capital Management, Workday and Top Tier Capital Partners.